Northridge drops into loser’s bracket of Legion B state tournament

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Andy Roth sensed a lack of intensity from his Northridge Legion B baseball team Friday afternoon.

What the Grizzlies’ coach didn’t know, nor expect, was the myriad of mistakes his squad would make.

You can’t bring up such mistakes, let alone expect them.

Leaving the bases loaded. Failing to advance runners. Being picked off twice. Just two hits in the final four innings and eventually leaving 12 runners stranded.

Add it all up and you get an non-opportunistic team, a disappointed coach and a trip to the loser’s bracket via a 4-3 loss to Kennedy in the second round of the Legion B state tournament at Tom Roche Field.

“We were timid,” Roth said. “I almost felt like that last night, too. I’m not sure where that’s coming from, but we have to get rid of it quickly.”

Quickly, like in less than 24 hours as the Grizzlies (29-8) drop into the consolation bracket for a game at 1 this afternoon against Denver East in the double-elimination tournament.

The Grizzlies may have set the tone early by leaving the bases loaded in the first.

That turned out to be indicative of how they let Kennedy slip ahead 5-3 with two runs in the top of the seventh — the result of a leadoff double to the base of the left-field fence by Romero Delfino that ended with a two-run double by Gary Vasquez before he was run down by Northridge catcher Kyle Greenwell after Elijah Baca missed a suicide squeeze bunt.

Northridge returned the favor in the bottom of the second by missing a suicide squeeze after Kayson Werner lined an RBI double to cut Kennedy’s lead to one with no outs.

The rally would end there as the Grizzlies failed to push any more runs in despite having runners on first and third with no outs.

Kennedy’s DJ Medina went the distance on the mound and picked up the victory, despite the Commanders recording just four hits and committing four errors.

“I’ll give him (Medina) credit,” Roth said. “As the game wore on and there were mistakes made we gave him confidence. It went back and forth, but he ended up with the confidence.”

“There are times when you have to buckle down and have to stand up and get an out ... I think I did a good job of that,” said Fulton, who gave way to Werner in the seventh inning.

“I just came in and wanted to throw strikes,” Werner said. “We just weren’t into it from the beginning. I can’t tell you why. It was just one of those games.”

The Grizzlies went ahead 2-0 in the second inning on a bases-loaded walk to Werner and RBI fielder’s choice by Jay Frye.

They scored again in the fifth when Korbin Reed lined an RBI double past a diving Kennedy left fielder Erik Anaya.

The Commanders posted three runs in the third via a wild pitch by Fulton, a bases-loaded walk to Anaya and an RBI infield single by Damien Gomez.

“They’re not a great hitting team, but they were solid and they did their job,” Fulton said.

Kennedy threatened in the sixth, but the threat was stopped solid as nine-hole hitter Isaac Gallegos was thrown out at second trying to stretch a single into a double.

The Commanders then caught the Grizzlies off guard with doubles from Delfino and Vasquez. Delfino’s two-bagger hit the base of the left-field fence on the fly.

“That was the only pitch I’d like to have back,” Fulton said.

Roth stopped short of defining any one hit or miscue that cost the Grizzles, instead adding “It’s tough. We have to execute in certain situations and we didn’t. We left base runners on all day long. We couldn’t execute a sacrifice bunt ... bottom line is that we didn’t execute anything we needed to.”